95% of the U.S. government's income comes from the top 5%. It's true - see irs.gov for the stats. I think you ought to send "the rich" a thank you letter instead of criticizing them.
>>>I have one almost 30 year old sister without any health insurance and one 33 year old sister without health insurance
All they have to do is go BUY some. I just got a quote from Nationwide and it was only $100 a month for catastrophic health insurance. If they don't have the money, let them cancel the cable tv, or cellphone, or internet (or all three) and then they'll have the $100.
Ya know..... I'm really sick of people who whine "I have no money" and aren't willing to do what it takes to balance their budget. I spend a mere $5 on my phone, $15 on internet, and nothing on television (it's antenna based). I sacrifice. Why can't these other lazy SOBs sacrifice?!?!?
(Yes I'm starting to get a little hot under the collar.)
>>>Except for the part where it reduces the deficit in the next decade per the CBO, and reduces the deficit still *more* for the decade after. And so on.
Boy when 2017 arrives and the national debt has risen from ~$12 to almost $20 trillion, won't you be surprised? Even your beloved Obama acknowledges this will happen in the budget he submitted to Congress. Yes we can blame Bush for the first 1-2 years of that, but the remaining 7 are all on Obama's back.
Obama has NO interest in cutting spending. He WANTS to increase our national debt, and admits as much in his budget.
>>>(Tangentially, at that point, when projecting Obama's budget I would, personally, start to include its deficit reductions in my calculations, simply based upon the President's attempted agenda.)
>>>
You talk a lot when you should be googling instead. Obama's budget is on the web, and you can read it for yourself. HE projects +1 trillion additional debt every year through 2016. And that's assuming the healthcare bill passes and saves money..... if it fails it will be even worse.
You don't need to "tangentially project" into the future. Obama and his team have already done the work for you, and even they admit the U.S. debt will grow about twice as fast as under either Bush or Clinton or even Reagan.
Because $130,000 is still $130,000. And in 2017 when the economy is roaring again, and the debt is about $200,000/home (per Obama's own budget projections), it will still be $200,000/home. You tried, but there's simply no way to make this look good.
>>>Your problem, I take it, is that you do not agree with what courts have said that the constitution allows.
No because the courts (specifically the Supreme Court) are part of the U.S. government, and threfore biased in favor of more U.S. Government power, not less. It is as illogical as asking Bill Gates to decide if Microsoft should be fined for violating antitrust law. It seems rather obvious what the answer will be.
The only true mediator is an entity outside of the Beltway..... like the 50 state legislatures. THEY created the constitution and they should be the ones declaring which U.S. Government laws are constitutional or unconstitutional, not the biased U.S. Government.
>>>I paid for you to go to school, and that means you got something for nothing. Pay up.
I'd be happy to send that money to you, but since I'm already paying school tax, police tax (funded by income tax), ambulance fees, and gasoline/road taxes. So I've already repaid/am paying for the benefits I received.
In fact I'm MORE than paying my share, since I'm in a high bracket with a higher progressive tax.
>>>Now, if tax money were used for the rollout then it would reflect a "pennies per month" shared across the board
You clearly have no idea how government works. I do because I've worked for them, and the inefficiency is ridiculous. I see tons of people sitting around doing nothing, but they don't get fired because it would reflect poorly on the politician during re-election. So there they sit surfing the net and getting paid $30-40 an hour to do it.
Verizon/ATT/et cetera would comply with the law to install DSLAMs, grudgingly, and they'd do it as efficiently as possible. Probably just one tech handling each install (per neighborhood).
In contrast government would probably have 5 guys. One to confirm the money is not ill-spent and fill out voluminous amounts of paperwork, another who works for the Senate to go-around patting everyone on the back for a job well done and reminding them to vote in November, another who has no real job but he's part of the "stimulus bill" and doing "workfare" so he spends his daying surfing the net in Uncle Sam's Broadband HQ..... and finally two guys to do the actual job of hooking up the DSLAM. (They won't actually need two guys, but per government regulations it's a "two man job" and therefore two are assigned to a job that only needs one.)
That's government in a nutshell, and it absolutely is NOT as efficient as a private company that has two choices: pinch pennies or die. 5 men versus 1 man. The private company will do it cheaper.
>>>If you believe in democracy then the government run service is ideal
Well let's consider other government services and whether or not they run "ideal" for the customers? - Medicare? Nope. Almost bankrupt. - SS? Nope. Same. Plus if you die before retirement all the hundreds of thousands you handed-in to that "retirement account" disappears. Even if you manage to retire but die early, like my grandma at age 68, then too bad. You still didn't get back all that you put in. (It's like a Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme.) - Post Office? Nope. Almost bankrupt. - Amtrak? Nope. Same reason and also slow as heck (a cross country journey takes 6-7 days; by car it's only 3). - EZpass? HA. Nope. It was supposed to save money by charging me only ~80 cents instead of 1 dollar. Now it COSTS me $20 a year just to have the thing in my car. Broken promises, and of course complaining about it doesn't do any good. Politicians don't hear the voices of the citizens. .
I could go on and on, but I think you get the gist of my thinking regarding government-run services. Hell if the government ran computers, we'd still all be using 8 bit CPUs. ("8 bits is all the people need," declared president bush on a recent stump speech.) No thanks. I prefer the power that Choice gives me.
If women can choose to abort human fetuses, then I ought to be able to choose what provider I want, not some damn Soviet Union-style Tribant ISP rammed down my throat. (Although I hear some people like that.)
Well if you're going to give credit for mass production, then I nominate one of these machines: Atari 800, Amiga 500, or Commodore 64. They provided a cheap product (like the Model T), that was loved by the masses (like the Model T), and became the number 3,2, and 1 best-selling computers of all time (like the Model T). They also innovated the very concept of "multimedia" with music, graphics, and video while other machines were displaying boring green or black text and simply went "beep".
I don't see Apple anywhere in that mix. Apples were outrageously expensive, such that the only people who could afford them were schools and/or hobbyists. Really. Who can afford a $4000 machine when there's a $300 C64 sitting right next to it?
Apple can take credit for making the iPod. It wasn't the first digital music player, but it did make it "hip" to flash your wealth around.
Why? Can't ma, pa, gram, and gramps just use a Windows XP or Ubuntu or Puppy Linux tablet? They are as easy to use as this porta-Mac iPad. Maybe you would have had an argument that Macs/Apples were better in the 1980s or 90s (and been right), but that doesn't apply today. The "others" have caught up.
You commented about using Speedtest.net results, rather than the FCC trying to setup their own survey. Their results show the U.S.A. at 7.7 Mbit/s overall. That's about 1M slower than the Russian Federation, but 1M faster than the EU, 2M faster than Canada/Australia, 4M faster than our main competitor China, and 5M faster than Brazil or Mexico.
i.e. The U.S. when compared to other continent-sized federations/areas is holding a solid second place. Not bad at all.
>>>Having able-bodied people sit at home when they could be doing something productive is incredibly wasteful -
No what's wasteful is the Stimulus Bill spending about $150,000 (average) for some guy to pave potholes, or sweep streets, or smash windows & replace them with new ones. That's about three times more than what the job is really worth - talk about a poor bargain. "Good news! You can buy this computer at +300% higher than retail price!"
I'd run away from a deal like that. It's a very, very poor way to spend our grandchildren's money.
>>>We could cut all other federal spending by as much as 75%, and without cuts in those 4 programs, we'd still be running a deficit.
Oh I agree. I'd mutate the SS, Medicare, Medicaid, and whatever Healthcare idea Pelosi passes into a *needs based* system like Welfare that only serves as a safety net, not an entitlement. For example: If you earned more than 5 million lifetime income, you'd be ineligible to receive funds.
Of course I'd still cut broadband and everything else - 75% all across the board. High-speed internet is a *luxury* not a necessity. I have dialup on my laptop and it works just fine to get my work done.
>>>Like, letting those who own 98% of the resources pay for 98% of the debt?
I'd be okay with that, but I'm also not stupid. Microsoft has already announced they would move to India if the U.S. tried that stunt, and I'm sure many corporations would follow suit.
>>>You're being naive..... All of our neighborhood twisted pair copper lines run to that hub - and are all concentrated for the trip to the central office over that one light pip >>>
You insulted me by calling me "naive" so now I will insult you via a demonstration:
HAHA! Obvious isn't it? In fact that's pretty much what Verizon did for my neighborhood two years ago, and it works great. I now have high speed internet instead of dialup.
>>>Stopping spending is exactly what caused the that massive recession that may or may not be over.
False. Overinflated housing prices is what caused an economy that was "hotter" than what it really was. And no amount of government spending is going to rebuild the bubble. It never should have existed in the first place.
Where the economy is now is where it's supposed to be. All the government is doing is creating a financial collapse of the dollar. Can YOU afford a $130,000 debt? Can you pay that back? I sure as hell can't and the creditors know that, which is why they want to abandon ship. ("We will not loan you any more money," said China.)
>>>Either you provide social services for the dead weight, or the dead weight turns to crime, or you euthanize the dead weight. Personally, I hate crime and I don't want to even think about the moral and procedural issues of deciding who gets to live. Thus, I pay my taxes. I don't like it, but it's the only solution we have that works. >>>
(typing from basement)
I and my extended family of 9 appreciate your sacrifice so we can live like parasites on you. In fact my whole town of unemployed persons appreciate it. Keep it up./end sarcasm
Doesn't that strike you as being horribly inefficient? IMHO the best thing we can do for the poor is make them uncomfortable in their existence (i.e. starve), so they'll be motivated to get off their butts and become self-sufficient rather than parasitic.
>>>Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can go to the library and read books thanks to my taxes?
You shouldn't.
>>>Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can drive on improved roads thanks to my taxes?
You don't. Everybody pays a fair share for roads, based upon how much gasoline they use. Although it's called a "road tax" or "gasoline tax", it's as close to a use tax as the U.S. has. Everybody who drives pays roughly an equal amount to keep that smooth road functional.
>>>Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can send your child to a school funded by my taxes?
You shouldn't. Like college the money should be funded by the parents, except in hardship cases (like welfare) where the state can provide help so the child grows-up educated citizen rather than illiterate welfare bum.
>>>Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can get medicare thanks to my taxes
You shouldn't.
>>>Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can be safe thanks to the military funded by my taxes?
Because the military protects the GENERAL welfare of every single home. Hence you should pay for it since you benefit from its protection.
You should not have to pay for a single tax, or program, unless it's authorized by the U.S. Constitution or your local State Constitution. And even then, only if YOU benefit from it (general welfare) not for the redistibution of wealth to sloths.
>>> I'm all for letting the FCC enforce quoted speeds for ISPs.
What do you need the FCC for? You can enforce the speeds yourself using existing mechanisms. Simply drag Comcast into court for "breach of contract". You might even be able to get a class-action suit for your local neighborhood where Cmcast was licensed.
Unfortunately you'd probably lose. Why? The contract you signed, if it looks like my contract, says "upto" a certain speed. Not a guarantee. Which means Comcast has done nothing wrong. A little immoral perhaps, but no different than how Walmart, Microsoft, or other corporations act. And no illegal.
>>>If you go by my ISP's advertising you'll see they're offering 10 Mbps in my area. What you won't see is that regardless of which plan you sign up for, you're lucky if you can actually get 3 Mbps. >>>
On the flip side: I signed-up for 53k with my Netscape ISP, and that's what I typically get. I signed-up for 768k with Verizon DSL, and that's what I get. And it only cost $7 and $15 respectively.
I'm satisfied with that - who are the politicians to tell me I shouldn't be satisfied? Who are they to FORCE me to buy, pay for (via taxes), and get a fiber optic service to my home? I think I can run my own life thank you very much. (Can you tell I'm fed up with the loss of choice?)
Grow up people. I'm tired of the finger-pointing. I'm not interested in Bush/Obama partisan BS. I didn't cast a single vote for any of them, therefore I will defend NEITHER of them.
I hate Bush probably more than you do because he betrayed fiscal conservatism, but facts are facts. Obama's projected budget from now to the end of 2016 will increase our national debt about TWICE as fast as the last eight years. End of story. It's in plain black-and-white if you just look at Obama's budget. It doesn't have to be that way. Obama could cut spending if he wanted to, but he *doesn't want to*. He wants to INCREASE spending.
And I don't care if you have a Bromance with Obama (he is rather cute and smart) because there's no way this can be allowed to continue, and the Democratic Congress or Republican Congress or Libertarian congress (or whoever is in charge during the next ten years) should *stop spending* not going out and searching for more ways to drive us closer to bankruptcy. Otherwise we're going to end-up like Germany in the 1920s, or Zimbabwe more recently, where it takes a wheelbarrow of dollars to buy a loaf of bread. (And it appears Iceland/Greece will reach that point soon.)
A $130,000 per home debt, climbing at $10,000 per year, is not sustainable. It doesn't matter whose fucking fault it was - it matters that we STOP SPENDING before we end up bankrupt like Iceland or Greece.
CORRECTED:...Under both Clinton and Bush the debt "only" increased ~0.5 trillion per year (from 1993 to 2000 and 2001 to 2008). Under Obama's existing and projected budget, the debt increased by about $2.5 trillion during 2009, $1.5 trillion in 2010, and $1.0 trillion for the years 2011, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.... Bush added about 4.0 trillion while Obama's projecting 8.0-9.0 trillion by 2016.
Good to know. Maybe I'll keep my EZpass rather than pay double cash tolls. (I drive to Illinois/Indiana often enough to make it worthwhile.)
Another bogus situation with toll roads is that you are "trapped" on the road and forced to pay $3.00 gasoline to the current state-granted monopoly. If you get off you'd find a cheaper station at about ~$2.70, but then that increases the cost of the toll charge (two separate transactions are higher than one). What a ripoff when government gets involved.
>>>...so you don't have homeowner's insurance, health insurance, or even car insurance?
For myself? No, no, and no. Although I am considering getting catastrophic insurance ($10,000 deductible) in case of cancer or other major illness.
As for the rest of your message, I read it, and it indicates to me you don't believe in either freedom or liberty. "50+" is called tyranny of the majority to squash the minority underfoot. I prefer to let the minority (of one) run his OWN life and decide what products he wants to buy. It's called individual sovereignty. And liberty.
Slashdot Mirror
>>>huge tax cuts for the rich?
95% of the U.S. government's income comes from the top 5%. It's true - see irs.gov for the stats. I think you ought to send "the rich" a thank you letter instead of criticizing them.
>>>I have one almost 30 year old sister without any health insurance and one 33 year old sister without health insurance
All they have to do is go BUY some. I just got a quote from Nationwide and it was only $100 a month for catastrophic health insurance. If they don't have the money, let them cancel the cable tv, or cellphone, or internet (or all three) and then they'll have the $100.
Ya know..... I'm really sick of people who whine "I have no money" and aren't willing to do what it takes to balance their budget. I spend a mere $5 on my phone, $15 on internet, and nothing on television (it's antenna based). I sacrifice. Why can't these other lazy SOBs sacrifice?!?!?
(Yes I'm starting to get a little hot under the collar.)
>>>Except for the part where it reduces the deficit in the next decade per the CBO, and reduces the deficit still *more* for the decade after. And so on.
Boy when 2017 arrives and the national debt has risen from ~$12 to almost $20 trillion, won't you be surprised? Even your beloved Obama acknowledges this will happen in the budget he submitted to Congress. Yes we can blame Bush for the first 1-2 years of that, but the remaining 7 are all on Obama's back.
Obama has NO interest in cutting spending. He WANTS to increase our national debt, and admits as much in his budget.
>>>(Tangentially, at that point, when projecting Obama's budget I would, personally, start to include its deficit reductions in my calculations, simply based upon the President's attempted agenda.)
>>>
You talk a lot when you should be googling instead. Obama's budget is on the web, and you can read it for yourself. HE projects +1 trillion additional debt every year through 2016. And that's assuming the healthcare bill passes and saves money..... if it fails it will be even worse.
You don't need to "tangentially project" into the future. Obama and his team have already done the work for you, and even they admit the U.S. debt will grow about twice as fast as under either Bush or Clinton or even Reagan.
>>>Make sense now?
Because $130,000 is still $130,000.
And in 2017 when the economy is roaring again, and the debt is about $200,000/home (per Obama's own budget projections), it will still be $200,000/home.
You tried, but there's simply no way to make this look good.
>>>Your problem, I take it, is that you do not agree with what courts have said that the constitution allows.
No because the courts (specifically the Supreme Court) are part of the U.S. government, and threfore biased in favor of more U.S. Government power, not less. It is as illogical as asking Bill Gates to decide if Microsoft should be fined for violating antitrust law. It seems rather obvious what the answer will be.
The only true mediator is an entity outside of the Beltway..... like the 50 state legislatures. THEY created the constitution and they should be the ones declaring which U.S. Government laws are constitutional or unconstitutional, not the biased U.S. Government.
>>>I paid for you to go to school, and that means you got something for nothing. Pay up.
I'd be happy to send that money to you, but since I'm already paying school tax, police tax (funded by income tax), ambulance fees, and gasoline/road taxes. So I've already repaid/am paying for the benefits I received.
In fact I'm MORE than paying my share, since I'm in a high bracket with a higher progressive tax.
>>>Now, if tax money were used for the rollout then it would reflect a "pennies per month" shared across the board
You clearly have no idea how government works. I do because I've worked for them, and the inefficiency is ridiculous. I see tons of people sitting around doing nothing, but they don't get fired because it would reflect poorly on the politician during re-election. So there they sit surfing the net and getting paid $30-40 an hour to do it.
Verizon/ATT/et cetera would comply with the law to install DSLAMs, grudgingly, and they'd do it as efficiently as possible. Probably just one tech handling each install (per neighborhood).
In contrast government would probably have 5 guys. One to confirm the money is not ill-spent and fill out voluminous amounts of paperwork, another who works for the Senate to go-around patting everyone on the back for a job well done and reminding them to vote in November, another who has no real job but he's part of the "stimulus bill" and doing "workfare" so he spends his daying surfing the net in Uncle Sam's Broadband HQ..... and finally two guys to do the actual job of hooking up the DSLAM. (They won't actually need two guys, but per government regulations it's a "two man job" and therefore two are assigned to a job that only needs one.)
That's government in a nutshell, and it absolutely is NOT as efficient as a private company that has two choices: pinch pennies or die. 5 men versus 1 man. The private company will do it cheaper.
>>>If you believe in democracy then the government run service is ideal
Well let's consider other government services and whether or not they run "ideal" for the customers?
- Medicare? Nope. Almost bankrupt.
- SS? Nope. Same. Plus if you die before retirement all the hundreds of thousands you handed-in to that "retirement account" disappears. Even if you manage to retire but die early, like my grandma at age 68, then too bad. You still didn't get back all that you put in. (It's like a Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme.)
- Post Office? Nope. Almost bankrupt.
- Amtrak? Nope. Same reason and also slow as heck (a cross country journey takes 6-7 days; by car it's only 3).
- EZpass? HA. Nope. It was supposed to save money by charging me only ~80 cents instead of 1 dollar. Now it COSTS me $20 a year just to have the thing in my car. Broken promises, and of course complaining about it doesn't do any good. Politicians don't hear the voices of the citizens.
.
I could go on and on, but I think you get the gist of my thinking regarding government-run services. Hell if the government ran computers, we'd still all be using 8 bit CPUs. ("8 bits is all the people need," declared president bush on a recent stump speech.) No thanks. I prefer the power that Choice gives me.
If women can choose to abort human fetuses, then I ought to be able to choose what provider I want, not some damn Soviet Union-style Tribant ISP rammed down my throat. (Although I hear some people like that.)
Well if you're going to give credit for mass production, then I nominate one of these machines: Atari 800, Amiga 500, or Commodore 64. They provided a cheap product (like the Model T), that was loved by the masses (like the Model T), and became the number 3,2, and 1 best-selling computers of all time (like the Model T). They also innovated the very concept of "multimedia" with music, graphics, and video while other machines were displaying boring green or black text and simply went "beep".
I don't see Apple anywhere in that mix. Apples were outrageously expensive, such that the only people who could afford them were schools and/or hobbyists. Really. Who can afford a $4000 machine when there's a $300 C64 sitting right next to it?
Apple can take credit for making the iPod. It wasn't the first digital music player, but it did make it "hip" to flash your wealth around.
That's about it.
Why? Can't ma, pa, gram, and gramps just use a Windows XP or Ubuntu or Puppy Linux tablet? They are as easy to use as this porta-Mac iPad. Maybe you would have had an argument that Macs/Apples were better in the 1980s or 90s (and been right), but that doesn't apply today. The "others" have caught up.
TRIVIA:
You commented about using Speedtest.net results, rather than the FCC trying to setup their own survey. Their results show the U.S.A. at 7.7 Mbit/s overall. That's about 1M slower than the Russian Federation, but 1M faster than the EU, 2M faster than Canada/Australia, 4M faster than our main competitor China, and 5M faster than Brazil or Mexico.
i.e. The U.S. when compared to other continent-sized federations/areas is holding a solid second place. Not bad at all.
>>>Having able-bodied people sit at home when they could be doing something productive is incredibly wasteful -
No what's wasteful is the Stimulus Bill spending about $150,000 (average) for some guy to pave potholes, or sweep streets, or smash windows & replace them with new ones. That's about three times more than what the job is really worth - talk about a poor bargain. "Good news! You can buy this computer at +300% higher than retail price!"
I'd run away from a deal like that. It's a very, very poor way to spend our grandchildren's money.
>>>We could cut all other federal spending by as much as 75%, and without cuts in those 4 programs, we'd still be running a deficit.
Oh I agree. I'd mutate the SS, Medicare, Medicaid, and whatever Healthcare idea Pelosi passes into a *needs based* system like Welfare that only serves as a safety net, not an entitlement. For example: If you earned more than 5 million lifetime income, you'd be ineligible to receive funds.
Of course I'd still cut broadband and everything else - 75% all across the board. High-speed internet is a *luxury* not a necessity. I have dialup on my laptop and it works just fine to get my work done.
>>>Like, letting those who own 98% of the resources pay for 98% of the debt?
I'd be okay with that, but I'm also not stupid. Microsoft has already announced they would move to India if the U.S. tried that stunt, and I'm sure many corporations would follow suit.
And we'd be left wihout jobs.
>>>You're being naive..... All of our neighborhood twisted pair copper lines run to that hub - and are all concentrated for the trip to the central office over that one light pip
>>>
You insulted me by calling me "naive" so now I will insult you via a demonstration:
CURRENT SETUP:
Fiber--- Hub --- copper telephone lines
UPGRADE:
Fiber--- DSLAM --- copper telephone lines
HAHA! Obvious isn't it? In fact that's pretty much what Verizon did for my neighborhood two years ago, and it works great. I now have high speed internet instead of dialup.
>>>Stopping spending is exactly what caused the that massive recession that may or may not be over.
False. Overinflated housing prices is what caused an economy that was "hotter" than what it really was. And no amount of government spending is going to rebuild the bubble. It never should have existed in the first place.
Where the economy is now is where it's supposed to be. All the government is doing is creating a financial collapse of the dollar. Can YOU afford a $130,000 debt? Can you pay that back? I sure as hell can't and the creditors know that, which is why they want to abandon ship. ("We will not loan you any more money," said China.)
>>>Either you provide social services for the dead weight, or the dead weight turns to crime, or you euthanize the dead weight. Personally, I hate crime and I don't want to even think about the moral and procedural issues of deciding who gets to live. Thus, I pay my taxes. I don't like it, but it's the only solution we have that works.
>>>
(typing from basement)
I and my extended family of 9 appreciate your sacrifice so we can live like parasites on you. In fact my whole town of unemployed persons appreciate it. Keep it up. /end sarcasm
Doesn't that strike you as being horribly inefficient? IMHO the best thing we can do for the poor is make them uncomfortable in their existence (i.e. starve), so they'll be motivated to get off their butts and become self-sufficient rather than parasitic.
>>>Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can go to the library and read books thanks to my taxes?
You shouldn't.
>>>Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can drive on improved roads thanks to my taxes?
You don't. Everybody pays a fair share for roads, based upon how much gasoline they use. Although it's called a "road tax" or "gasoline tax", it's as close to a use tax as the U.S. has. Everybody who drives pays roughly an equal amount to keep that smooth road functional.
>>>Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can send your child to a school funded by my taxes?
You shouldn't. Like college the money should be funded by the parents, except in hardship cases (like welfare) where the state can provide help so the child grows-up educated citizen rather than illiterate welfare bum.
>>>Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can get medicare thanks to my taxes
You shouldn't.
>>>Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can be safe thanks to the military funded by my taxes?
Because the military protects the GENERAL welfare of every single home. Hence you should pay for it since you benefit from its protection.
You should not have to pay for a single tax, or program, unless it's authorized by the U.S. Constitution or your local State Constitution. And even then, only if YOU benefit from it (general welfare) not for the redistibution of wealth to sloths.
>>> I'm all for letting the FCC enforce quoted speeds for ISPs.
What do you need the FCC for? You can enforce the speeds yourself using existing mechanisms. Simply drag Comcast into court for "breach of contract". You might even be able to get a class-action suit for your local neighborhood where Cmcast was licensed.
Unfortunately you'd probably lose. Why? The contract you signed, if it looks like my contract, says "upto" a certain speed. Not a guarantee. Which means Comcast has done nothing wrong. A little immoral perhaps, but no different than how Walmart, Microsoft, or other corporations act. And no illegal.
>>>If you go by my ISP's advertising you'll see they're offering 10 Mbps in my area. What you won't see is that regardless of which plan you sign up for, you're lucky if you can actually get 3 Mbps.
>>>
On the flip side:
I signed-up for 53k with my Netscape ISP, and that's what I typically get.
I signed-up for 768k with Verizon DSL, and that's what I get.
And it only cost $7 and $15 respectively.
I'm satisfied with that - who are the politicians to tell me I shouldn't be satisfied? Who are they to FORCE me to buy, pay for (via taxes), and get a fiber optic service to my home? I think I can run my own life thank you very much. (Can you tell I'm fed up with the loss of choice?)
Grow up people. I'm tired of the finger-pointing.
I'm not interested in Bush/Obama partisan BS.
I didn't cast a single vote for any of them,
therefore I will defend NEITHER of them.
I hate Bush probably more than you do because he betrayed fiscal conservatism, but facts are facts. Obama's projected budget from now to the end of 2016 will increase our national debt about TWICE as fast as the last eight years. End of story. It's in plain black-and-white if you just look at Obama's budget. It doesn't have to be that way. Obama could cut spending if he wanted to, but he *doesn't want to*. He wants to INCREASE spending.
And I don't care if you have a Bromance with Obama (he is rather cute and smart) because there's no way this can be allowed to continue, and the Democratic Congress or Republican Congress or Libertarian congress (or whoever is in charge during the next ten years) should *stop spending* not going out and searching for more ways to drive us closer to bankruptcy. Otherwise we're going to end-up like Germany in the 1920s, or Zimbabwe more recently, where it takes a wheelbarrow of dollars to buy a loaf of bread. (And it appears Iceland/Greece will reach that point soon.)
A $130,000 per home debt, climbing at $10,000 per year, is not sustainable. It doesn't matter whose fucking fault it was - it matters that we STOP SPENDING before we end up bankrupt like Iceland or Greece.
CORRECTED: ...Under both Clinton and Bush the debt "only" increased ~0.5 trillion per year (from 1993 to 2000 and 2001 to 2008). Under Obama's existing and projected budget, the debt increased by about $2.5 trillion during 2009, $1.5 trillion in 2010, and $1.0 trillion for the years 2011, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.... Bush added about 4.0 trillion while Obama's projecting 8.0-9.0 trillion by 2016.
Sorry I made an error.
>>>they doubled the cash tolls
Good to know. Maybe I'll keep my EZpass rather than pay double cash tolls. (I drive to Illinois/Indiana often enough to make it worthwhile.)
Another bogus situation with toll roads is that you are "trapped" on the road and forced to pay $3.00 gasoline to the current state-granted monopoly. If you get off you'd find a cheaper station at about ~$2.70, but then that increases the cost of the toll charge (two separate transactions are higher than one). What a ripoff when government gets involved.
>>>...so you don't have homeowner's insurance, health insurance, or even car insurance?
For myself? No, no, and no. Although I am considering getting catastrophic insurance ($10,000 deductible) in case of cancer or other major illness.
As for the rest of your message, I read it, and it indicates to me you don't believe in either freedom or liberty. "50+" is called tyranny of the majority to squash the minority underfoot. I prefer to let the minority (of one) run his OWN life and decide what products he wants to buy. It's called individual sovereignty. And liberty.